


Genesis of Monsters

by Ora (Finale)



Series: Out of the Black [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Brainwashing, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Violence, poor Ana
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 16:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Ora
Summary: Monsters are not born.They're made.





	Genesis of Monsters

_ “They’re finally coming?” _

_ “Yep. Followed the path of crumbs to the witch’s door.”  _

_ “Heh. Still a buncha idiots.” _

* * *

 

Ana doesn’t have the strength to lift her head as she hears the roar of a battle going on around her. What sounds like the steady crack of Peacekeeper, the growl of Hellfire shotguns, or the deep  _ boom _ of Reinhardt’s hammer hitting a target reach her. Have they...are her friends coming for her? People survived Zurich? 

For the first time in six months she feels hope. 

Heavy footsteps run outside the cell she’s trapped in. She’s still strapped down from her earlier torture. It’s odd. They didn’t bandage her at all this time. Just began cutting, pulling, making her bleed. Taunting words and knives just under her eyes. But they’d left in a hurry; maybe her saviors had been seen? 

The door opens and Ana barely has the strength to turn her head and see who it is. 

_ Reinhardt! _

“Oh Ana,” he breathes, gently putting his hammer down. “Gabriel! I found Ana! I need Mercy or another medic down here now! They’ve been torturing her!” 

“Reinhardt,” she whispers, relief flooding her voice. “You’re...you’re really here?” She’s not seeing things?

“I’m really here  _ mausbär _ ,” he promises, carefully undoing the straps holding her down. “I’m here and I will be a shield to keep you safe. We’re going home.”

* * *

Ana doesn’t entirely remember her captivity with Talon, and she isn’t surprised. After a while she thinks she simply shut down from the torture, lack of food and water getting to her. They’d kept her in the hospital for almost two weeks, rehydrating her, having her start to speak with a therapist and giving her appointments for meeting therapy, both psychological and physical. According to Angela, there had been something odd around her eyes, but neither could figure out what.

Now she is home with Reinhardt, safe with her loving knight. Their remaining friends are with them, even Gabriel and Jesse. Angela is sitting in a corner, reading a book, though it looks almost like her eyes aren’t following the text. Maybe she simply wishes to be left alone? Odd. Amélie is sitting by herself too, but that is easily fixable.

“Thank you Amé,” Ana smiles, taking a seat next Amélie. “It seems it was a very good idea to show you how to use a sniper rifle. I was impressed.” 

“ _ Merci _ ,” Amélie blushes, barely visible under her darker skin. “I am grateful that you taught me. I am glad I was able to help and at least start to make things right.” 

_ Oh Allah… _

“Amé, you know no one blames you for Gérard’s actions, right?” Ana asks, resting her hand over the younger’s. “There was no reason for you to suspect anything. Jack and I should have spotted something.” 

“I knew he was stressed, that things were bothering him,” Amélie’s fists clench tightly. “If I had been more attentive…”

“Amélie, the only way you could have been more attentive is if you’d followed at his heels night and day,” Ana interrupts. “You had no way of knowing what was going on. After listening to his rantings, the biggest problem is that Jack and I missed the signs.”

She had been too distracted by thoughts of her upcoming retirement and Fareeha’s application to join Overwatch. Jack had been folding in on himself again, very little of the man she’d first met almost twenty years earlier still there. His divorce and Gabriel’s resignation had left Jack battered and a part of her hesitates to even call the man who died in Zurich Jack Morrison any more. But even with their issues, they should have seen something was wrong, not Amélie. She was just a civilian. 

“Still…” Amélie says softly, biting her bottom lip.

“How about this better news?” Ana smiles, deciding to share her secret in hopes of seeing Amélie smile. The former premier dansuer had a gorgeous smile. “Reinhardt asked me to marry him!” she whispers, smile growing into a grin. 

“Congratulations!” Amélie grins back at her, whispering even as she claps her hands in delight. “And finally! I’ve been wondering for years…”

“The time was never right. But now…” Ana’s smile softens. “Zurich reminded us both how quickly things can change. How quickly people we love can be lost. And we’d like to make sure that we at least face the future together. We’re thinking of a marriage in the spring. What do you think?”

“I think you’ll make a lovely bride Ana.”

* * *

_ Status? _

_ Target eliminated. _

_ Excellent. Return to base. We have a new mission for you Shrike. _

* * *

 

Shrike doesn’t like being forced to do missions in Egypt. The only places worse are Germany and Switzerland. Places that bring up old memories. Places that make her think of times before Talon, before  _ Shrike _ . Times when Ana Amari was still alive. 

Prime Minister Hadad’s meeting with the Ethiopian ambassador should soon be ending. Then both men will stand on a podium and smile, and wave, and lie. And while lies drip from their lips, her bullets will burst through their brains, making blood drip to the ground. The first truth of the day, the Prime Minster and Ambassador are dead.

Hmmm. Was her programming supposed to make her so poetic?

It’s decades of skill that lets her see the slight shift to reveal the other target, and Shrike’s finger freezes on the trigger of her rifle. She knows the other sniper. She knows her. She... 

_ (Are you sure Ana? You’re not just... _

_ You’re showing a lot of progress Amé. You know I don’t give praise easily. _

Merci  _ Ana.) _

“Amélie…” she breaths, shifting her head and her rifle slightly.  _ Arachne. _

She remembers the warm press of the former ballerina’s body against her’s. The excited squeak Amélie made the first time she hit a bullseye, and the way she’d flung her arms around Ana in a hug. The joy on Amélie’s face after they all thought she’d been saved from Talon. The satisfaction on Amélie’s face when she discussed sniping Talon agents to cover Reinhardt. 

One shot. One kill. 

Her orders had been simple. Kill the Prime Minister and the Ambassador, and eliminate any complications that may arise. Shrike had already wasted three bullets on bodyguards that wouldn’t move. Slit the throat of two housekeepers that were in her way. Arachne is just another complication. Something else to be eliminated. 

Spiders are easy to kill. 

One shot. 

Shrike pulls the trigger.

* * *

 

Shrike remembers the first time she saw Ripper tear through a battlefield. A demon in white and silver, drenched in blood by the time he’s done. He still favors a pulse rifle, like he always did, but she can see the further modifications he’s done. She can also see he never bothers to reload it, though how that works she doesn’t pretend to understand. 

All she can do is see. Always see. Blood on her hands; blood in her mouth. 

Ripper is as brutal as his namesake, battlefields full of torn apart corpses. She remembers different fields. Almost brutal neatness in the way Strike Commander  Morrison had fought. He’d made sure to kill quickly, to make sure no one suffered, be they human or omnic. Ripper on the other hand seems to revel in the pain, in the drawn out deaths. Seems to almost feed off of them the same way he did souls. 

Everything must die and hurt, and scream like he can’t?

Shrike thinks that what he’s said, but Talon makes things hard for her to remember. They don’t like having her cover Ripper. Don’t like it when missions draw them together. They seem to think Ripper wants to save her, to bring Ana Amari back from Shrike, but that’s because they misunderstand Ripper. 

They think Ripper was born from Jack Morrison. They think that when Mercy pulled that mostly dead body from the Strike Commander’s office that she’d been desperately trying save Morrison. That she’d pumped Morrison’s body full of nanites gone horribly wrong. That her failure-success at saving Morrison is what turned him into Ripper, the physical pain destroying him mentally. And maybe they are right, in thinking that’s what Mercy  _ intended _ .

But Shrike sees. She knows.  

Ripper was born from the Strike Commander, Jack Morrison dead for five years already.

And Ripper has no desire to rescue Shrike. Maybe he’ll be kind enough to give her a quick death. Slit throat, bullet to the brain through the eye the way she almost killed Arachne. But no. Ripper is no hero. Shrike is no hero. 

Heroes only die.

_ (Reinhardt, no not Reinhardt, why, why, no, please why?) _

* * *

 

So many world leaders dead with nothing but a bullet to their heads, and still they do such a poor job at guarding them. She’s killed six sitting presidents, five prime ministers, two royals, twenty CEOs of major and minor corporations, and almost a dozen rights campaigners. Mondatta is just another poorly guarded target of a delusional mindset. 

Shrike remembers the Omnic Crisis. She remembers shooting thousands of tin cans, but they kept coming in waves and it seemed like it would never end. Ana Amari and Overwatch, fighting to the last man standing to deal with the omnic threat, but then it was suddenly over. Omniums destroyed, pleas for peace and trust. Pleas for rights and equality for omnics, and Shrike can remember supporting that. 

She remembers supporting peace. She remembers wanting a better world, a safer world for Fareeha to grow up in. She remembers, she remembers, she remembers, and wishes she could forget. Forget that she’d ever been anything but Shrike, anything but Talon’s top killer. 

Forget a cheerful girl with a Cockney accent who’d all but run at the Strike Commander’s heels. A girl who should have been lost to the Slipstream, dead with no body left to bury. Shrike ignores Tracer’s taunts, her questions and demands. She shoots, and barely misses the flickering form, but now she has the shot. Either Tracer’s accelerator or Mondatta’s head, both are fine for Shrike. Both get rid of a high Talon target, but even as she lines up the shot, she sees another sniper. 

Eight red eyes, barely visible in the King’s Row night, and Shrike knows who’s eyes are covered by that visor. Knows the hand on that gun’s trigger. Knows where that gun is aimed.

One shot.

One kill.

They pull their triggers.  
_Please Amélie. Please._


End file.
